


We Follow Them and Descend (We Cannot Turn Back)

by iheartloofas, juvenna_reverie



Series: Week Two of Quarantine [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Genre: Deathly Hallows AU, F/M, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Love at First Sight, more deathly hallows, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24730669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iheartloofas/pseuds/iheartloofas, https://archiveofourown.org/users/juvenna_reverie/pseuds/juvenna_reverie
Summary: There's a new family in the neighborhood.
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Erina Pendleton Joestar
Series: Week Two of Quarantine [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1788163
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	We Follow Them and Descend (We Cannot Turn Back)

**Author's Note:**

> this is sad, but accidentally. it's dumb too.

There’s a new family in the neighborhood.

Erina watches them from the window, desperate for any distraction from the droning tone of Monsieur Bisset. A girl could memorize only so many past participles before she began to wither away.

The father steps out first. He is tall, stretched like taffy, with a long face that clashes with the spectacles perched on his nose. He holds his arm out for his wife, who descends the carriage behind him. She walks with a quiet regality, her long hair coiffed in the style Erina often saw in her mother’s magazines. 

A small girl climbs out next. She has dark hair like her father, but it hangs in her face, long and unruly. Her dress, if one could even call it that, is long, dark, and robe-like. Most unflattering.

How strange. Mother would never let me out in such a state. Erina curls her hair around her finger, about ready to turn back to Monsieur Bisset’s lecturing when two boys appear.  
They look similar from this distance, only distinguishable by height. They share their mother’s dark blonde hair, and their father’s physique. Erina’s eyes trail the eldest boy. She can’t see his face, just the top of his sandy head. His hair is cut slightly long, and given to a wave when it grows, she should imagine. 

She doesn’t know if it’s the movement of her hand as she twists her hair, or the weight of her stare, but he lifts his head and focuses his attention on the window. 

They stare straight at each other and Erina finds she cannot look away. She feels her lips move as though to say something, God knows what, and all of a sudden she is gripped by the need to get out of this house. To run downstairs, to burst out her front door, to reach him. But she doesn’t. She stays in her chair by that window, in that dark classroom, because to do otherwise would be ridiculous. She stays, and she looks, and she desperately tries to convey to him to knock on her door. To ask for her, to get her out of this godforsaken room. They could take a walk down the road to that pond her and Jonathan played in as children. They would talk, he would laugh, would smile, and her heart would be his.

She can’t quite make out the color of his eyes from this distance. Green, she’d say, or blue maybe?

Perhaps it’s wishful thinking, but Erina would swear she sees the same thunderbolt hit him too; as if an invisible fork of lightning has inexplicably joined them together. Recognition; naked, electric shock in his rounded eyes. He does something close to an incredulous double take, the kind one might do upon coincidentally meeting an old and dear friend.

It’s a look of Hello you, and Oh, it’s you, and I can’t believe how good it is to see you, all in one. 

But above all, it’s a promise. And Erina knows that this boy will always find her, will always come to her, will love her as she does him.

He smiles, blinding, and mouths Hello.

She smiles back.

~*~  
A boy and a girl, inseparable in life, shattered by death. The boy, made a man by tragedy and heartbreak, says no more. Says his love ascends all, believes it, makes it true. He takes his stone, unnatural yet not evil, and drags her back from that place. But the man did not ask her, did not think of her, thought only of them (of him). So he drags her from peace, and says stay with me. And she does, unnatural yet not evil, passive yet not content.  
~*~

She does not eat. She sits, flaxen hair limp around her shoulders, her small hands folded in her lap. 

“Please.” Albus had been taught to never beg. To never plead, never ask, to coldly strategize, to apologize later.

“Erina please. My love, just look at me.” His voice is tired. That first week, he had hope. She is adjusting, he thought. She will soon become my Erina again.

It has been months now. They blend together, dark and lonely in that oppressive way he remembers from childhood. Their life together was supposed to be different. Bright and warm. Happy.

He kneels at her feet. She stares at her fingers, eyes glassy. 

He presses his cheek to her lap. Grabs her hand, icy and frail, and brings it to his lips. 

She is not his anymore, and he is not hers. He understands now.

“I’ll give you back,” Albus whispers against her fingers. He clutches the Resurrection Stone. Closes his eyes. Releases.

He sinks against the now empty chair. A large hand clutches his shoulder.

“I warned you.”

“You did,” Albus agrees. He turns then, and looks into the face of Death. 

His hair is long and straight, reflecting the lamplight. On his head perches a brown hat with a wide rim. He is classically handsome, with a strong jaw and long lashes, but his lips and eyes glow a grotesque shade of green. The effect is disturbing, but Albus does not look away.

“Take me to her.” He clutches the man’s boot-clad feet. “Please.”

Death shakes his head sadly, blonde hair moving in a way painfully familiar to Albus. He is reminded of Erina, long strands flowing between his fingertips. Her laughter. He looks down.

“You still have much to do here.” Death steps back, ready to fade into the shadows where the lamplight cannot reach. 

“And what of her!” He stands up then, clutching the back of that chair where she had sat just moments before. “And what of her!” He throws it then, flings it at the bare wall, where it shatters upon impact. He pants, suddenly angry, so full of hate at the sheer audacity of the world, of fate, of Death, to decide that he must remain in this place where she would never return. To continue breathing, to continue living, without the person who had become so integral to his existence.

“She had done everything she was meant to do.”

It is cruel, as much as it is true. Erina was not plagued with ambition as Albus was. She had wanted simple things, a simple life. “I have you,” she’d say. “And you have me. Isn’t this all we need?” And it was.

“You have a duty, Albus Dumbledore, one you cannot ignore. This is your fate.” His tone leaves no room for argument or rebuttal. He turns, and melts away.

Albus stays knelt on the floor long after Death has left him, staring into darkness.


End file.
